What it sounds like is can make this wallet file; save it on an SD card. Lock it up in my closet. Then deposit coins to the address associated with the wallet.dat file with out having to take it out of its 'spot' UNLESS i want to pull coins out of my savings? If so this is awesome! I'm looking forward to setting this up. Thanks for the post!

Just my grain of salt from a Mac point of view, if you have ML server installed and more than one Mac up and running - please find faults, it's all "as far as I am aware"... maybe too convoluted for general use!

2) startup from this USB drive, install Bitcoin and wallet (encrypt at your discretion)(you'll have to transfer via USB stock from another machine so as not to connect to internet)

3) use ML server to create netboot image

4) this netboot image is a little like a guest account, and when powered off, will forget everything you installed (so get it right the first time or you'll have to redo everything again!) or did whilst in use - but as your transactions should update on connecting your bitcoin client, then this info is "live" (via internet) each time you boot the image

you can use it as you would a Live CD of Linux, but with everything all ready installed and ready to use, & only perform your "high-end" bitcoin operations from this netboot image,.. if you previously prepared with as high security as possible (firewall blocks everything), you can be pretty sure that your brief use of this image will not be compromised...

* as noted from my member state, i'm a newbie, so if there is something I haven't understood 100% here (about bitcoin), I'm very open to making a better method... ;-)

I just earned a few Bitcoins and wanted to test creating a secure wallet. I have a few concerns which I hope someone could explain me. Here is my plan to do this. Please add if I miss something or some other method is better! Also I apology for my noobish questions.

1. I will create a Linux boot CD and boot my computer with that, starting Linux desktop version.2. I will download Bitcoin software (Bitcoin-QT) from bitcoin.org/en/download and create a new wallet with a few addresses. (Is this absolutely secure on Linux environment? Without doing some hardening or adding firewall?)3. I will encrypt the wallet by using the encryption provided within Bitcoin software.4. I will copy the encrypted wallet over to a brand new flash drive and have a backup of it on another flash drive.5. I will delete the wallet on my computer.6. I will shutdown linux and go to my PC and send the coins over to the addresses of my new wallet that is stored within my flash drives.7. I will store the flash drives separately to secure locations. (I understood that the wallets don't need to be connected to internet in order to receive Bitcoins to them?)8. When I'd like to access my stash, I use the live CD to boot my PC, download bitcoin-qt, unencrypt the wallet from one of the flash drives and place it to the proper file path and that's it?

I just earned a few Bitcoins and wanted to test creating a secure wallet. I have a few concerns which I hope someone could explain me. Here is my plan to do this. Please add if I miss something or some other method is better! Also I apology for my noobish questions.

1. I will create a Linux boot CD and boot my computer with that, starting Linux desktop version.2. I will download Bitcoin software (Bitcoin-QT) from bitcoin.org/en/download and create a new wallet with a few addresses. (Is this absolutely secure on Linux environment? Without doing some hardening or adding firewall?)3. I will encrypt the wallet by using the encryption provided within Bitcoin software.4. I will copy the encrypted wallet over to a brand new flash drive and have a backup of it on another flash drive.5. I will delete the wallet on my computer.6. I will shutdown linux and go to my PC and send the coins over to the addresses of my new wallet that is stored within my flash drives.7. I will store the flash drives separately to secure locations. (I understood that the wallets don't need to be connected to internet in order to receive Bitcoins to them?)8. When I'd like to access my stash, I use the live CD to boot my PC, download bitcoin-qt, unencrypt the wallet from one of the flash drives and place it to the proper file path and that's it?

Is there anything else to add?

You've pretty much got it. Indeed, wallets do not have to be connected to the internet. The wallets don't contain the "coins themselves," as the coins are just an entry in the blockchain which is kept track of by the entire network. The wallets just contain the permission to use the coins.

As for #2, if you're super-worried about the haxx0rs, note that you don't even have to have this computer connected to the internet. Once you get the bitcoin source package, and the necessary dependencies, that is. Then you can disconnect the internet, start the client, and create the wallet. The wallet is just a private key; it doesn't need to send or receive anything from the network for it to be functioning/valid. You could never put that wallet online and still "send" "coins" "to" "it" for years.

As for a livedisk, I'd use "Tails" which is a distro of linux specifically set up for security, anonymity, privacy etc.